Shepherd of souls, Thy sheep be­hold
In this dark, cloudy day,
The wolf is come into Thy fold,
To scat­ter, tear, and slay.
His bloody hand th’op­press­or shakes
Against the faith­ful seed,
And ha­voc of Thy Church he makes—
He makes us as our Head.

Thy marks we in our b­odies bear,
But arm us with Thy pow­er,
The rage of fiends and men we dare,
And meet the ev­il hour.
They on­ly can our bo­dies kill,
Our souls can ne­ver die;
Our souls ex­ist in Je­sus still,
And reign above the sky.

Wherefore the ut­most suf­fer­ings here
Of those who Je­sus love,
We count not wor­thy to com­pare
With our re­ward above.
Light are the pains we now en­dure,
And quick­ly over-past,
But of the plea­sures they se­cure,
Eternally shall last.

On all th’af­flict­ion we look down,
The joy so far ex­ceeds,
So bright, so weigh­ty is the crown
It sets upon your heads.
O what a glo­ri­ous life shall be
In us, e’en us re­vealed,
While face to face our Lord we see,
With all His full­ness filled.

Who would not then, for such a hope,
The path of sor­row tread,
And take his mas­ter’s bur­den up,
And suf­fer with his Head?
Who would not cheer­ful­ly sus­tain
A cross so light as this,
And bear a mo­men­ta­ry pain
For an eter­nal bliss?